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Nineteenth Century Prophets 

IX.— ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



A SUNDAY LECTURE 



BEFORE 



Congregation Rodeph Shalom 

Eighth Street, near Penn Avenue 

PITTSBURG, PA. 
BY 

Rabbi J. LEONARD LEVY, D. D. 
Series 4 Sunday, April 16, 1905 No. 26 



These Sunday Lectures are distributed Free of Charge in the Temple 
to all who attend the Services. 

Another edition is distributed free to friends of liberal religious thought, 
on written application to the Rabbi. 

An extra edition is printed for those wishing to have these lectures 
mailed to friends residing out of the City. 

Apply to CHARLES H. JOSEPH, 

619 Bijou buiJdingj Pittsburg 



' '\ 



SUNDAY LECTURES 



BEFORE 



Congregation Rodeph Shalom 





The Blue Laws. 


SERIES IV. 


1. 




16. 


2. 


The City and the Teacher. 




17. 


3. 


Believe Not All You Hear. 




18. 


4. 


A Jewish View of Life. 




19. 


5. 


A Jewish View of Death. 




20. 


6. 


The Cry of the Children. 




21. 


7. 


While there's Life there's 


Hope. 


22. 


8. 


Marriage and Divorce. 




23. 


9. 


Birthdays. 




24. 


10. 


The Peace of Justice. 




35. 


11. 


The Jewish Home. 




26. 


12. 


To Have and To Hold. 


, 


27. 


13. 


The Success of Negro 




28. 




Education — Booker T. Washington 


29. 


14. 


The Fatherhood of God. 




30. 


15. 


The Brotherhood of Man. 







Unity, Not Uniformity. 
Plain Living and High Thinking. 
I. — Prophets and Prophecy. 
II. — Thomas Carlyle. 
III. — Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
IV. — Alfred Tennyson. 
v. — Theodore Parker. 
VI. — Isaac M. Wise. 
VII. — John Ruskin. 
VIII. — Lyof N. Tolstoy. 
IX. — Abraham Lincoln. 
Jesus and his Brethren. 
The Gospel of Common-Sense. 



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Nineteenth Century Prophets 

IX.— ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



A Sunday Lecture 



BEFORE 



Congregation Rodeph Shalom 

Pittsburg, Pa. 



April 16, 1905 



Rabbi J. LEONARD LEVY, D. D. 



m 



3 I81B 



4^»€elma^ 






Abraham Lincoln 



The prophets of the human family have been men of 
mig-ht\ purpose, who gained a ghmpse of truth and who 
remained true to the vision granted to them. They have 
been men full of vigor, of set ideas and of fixed determina- 
tion. They understood that (iocl reveals llimsclf to man 
not only through the physical phenomena of nature, but 
also through the law of righteousness. They conceived it 
to be their duty to do their utmost to apply this law to the 
economic, social, political and religious conditions of the 
age in which they lived, to follow that law and to induce 
others so to do. 

The Hope of the Reformer. 

They dived deep into the sea of moral thought, brought 
therefrom a gem. and they were determined that men should 
wear it. Thev also ascended to the heights of the moun- 
tain of experience, the\' saw ( iod face to face, spoke with 
Him "'as a man speaketli tf) his brother." and they came 
back to earth to tell what they had learned, to the end that 
mankind might be bettered. When these men heard the 
voice of God impelling them to their dut\' all shirking be- 
came impossible. They had a habit, as has been well said, 
"of making a bee-line for the gallows." They knew that 
men would not listen to them. They realized that they 
would be rejected • but, having once received, as it were. 



I 86 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROPHETS 

a command from ( Jod. they would not swerve from it ; 
having once put their hand to the plow, they would not 
turn back ; and though they were unaided and unheeded, 
though they were denounced, though they were defamed, 
though they were scorned, yet with firm foot, with fixed 
purpose, they made their proclamation to the world, though 
the path of glory led but to the grave. These men were 
alone. Few cared to go to their heights of thought ; few 
understood the full meaning of their visions, and therefore 
these men were called insane, afflicted with lunacw though 
some dignified the supposed disease by calling it "the in- 
sanity of genius." The prophets knew that they were sane 
when the world was crazy. They knew that they were 
right when all the world was wrong, and they walked their 
\'ia Dolorosa bearing their heavy burdens, although they 
were denounced, decried and deserted, although their path 
led to a cross on which they were to be crucified, or to a stake 
at which public opinion burned them. They walked whither 
the light took them, in scorn of consequence and despite the 
advice of their most friendly acquaintances. 

The Trials of the Reformer. 
The task of the reformer, like his path, bristles with 
difficulties. So long as he deals with abstract questions 
his hearers will say, "How beautifully he speaks!" If he 
dilates on abstract principles men will flatter him and con- 
gratulate him, saying, "Behold a Daniel come to judgment!" 
If he descants "in beautiful language" on the virtues others 
are expected to practise, men will hail him as a "brave de- 
fender of the faith." Rut if he dares to reduce these prin- 
ciples to their practical applications and within the intellect 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 187 

tual comprehension of the men and women he addresses ; 
if he is bold enough to tell them that these principles are 
valueless unless practised ; if he says that a virtue Boating 
in the air is but wind, and that to be worthy of the name it 
must be transformed into actual existence in the daily lives 
of the people, then men will withdraw from him, women 
will speak ill of him, congregations will fail him, communi- 
ties will denounce him. and all, forsooth, because he asked 
them to practise that which they said they admired. Such 
is the failing of humanity, Alas, poor human nature! 
We approve the right, but we do not do it. We admire 
the good, but we are not willing to follow it. Our own 
selfish ends, our own selfish purposes, are all in which, for 
the most part, we are interested, and principles can go to 
the world's end for practical exemplification, for all that 
human nature generally cares. In the language of Stephen 
Douglas, most men do not care whether these principles 
"be voted up or down;" but to the prophets such an attitude 
is of vast importance. They live to see the religious prin- 
ciple adopted as a daily practice ; they struggle to institute 
moral truths in the daily lives of men. 

Few men in a whole century are selected by God to be 
His messengers. Only a handful in all the history of the 
human family have thus been designed, and those whom 
we recognize as humanity's prophets, those whom we cheer- 
fully pedestal in the Temple of Fame for all eternity, are 
but few ; yet they are the salt of humanity, its uplifters, its 
saviors, its redeemers — aye, its suffering Messiah. You can 
very well understand that this brief introduction applies 
especially to the life of the man whom we desire to discuss 



1 88 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROPHETS 

to-day, the noblest American of them all, the greatest child 
of this great Republic, the savior of the nation, America's 
suffering Messiah — Abraham Lincoln. 

Lincoln and Darwin. 

Tie was born — you know the story better than T do — 
in the- year 1809, on February T2, a day famous in the 
history of England's and America's greatest emancipators, 
for on the day on which, in Harbin county, Kentucky, was 
born the liberator of the slave, in England the great emanci- 
pator, Charles Darwin, was born. Both of them born on 
the same day, of the same month, of the same year ; both of 
them designed to break chains, to relieve men of shackles, 
to cast off fetters ; the one from body, the other from soul ; 
the one in the realm of intellectuality, the other in the world 
of everyday human life. It is said that A1)raham Lincoln 
was born of Quaker ancestry, that he had a very shiftless 
father, a very sweet mother, whom he lost early in life, but 
to whom he said he owed everything he afterward became. 
In those days to live in the Western world did not mean 
what it does to-day. A few pieces of wood erected upon a 
little piece of ground which had been cleared meant a home, 
one-half being given over to the cattle, the other half serv- 
ing as drawing room, bedroom, parlor, dining room and 
kitchen for the famil\-. In such a home in the backwoods 
of Kentucky was this boy brought into the world. When 
he had reached the age of seven the family moved to In- 
diana, and a little later on they removed to Illinois. 

His biographers tell how he showed a great passion 
for knowledge, and it is well known that in his struggle 
to gain information he would crouch under a tree or lie 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1 89 

on his stomach in the log cabin before tlie fire trying to get 
a Httle Hght on any book or sHp of paper that niight fall 
into his hands. He received in all only seven months of 
schooling; but he did not need the private colleges or high 
schools controlled, as they sometimes are, by narrow-minded 
political or religious bigots. The heart and soul and mind 
of Lincoln were attuned to the voice of nature, and in her 
great volume he read and learned lessons that the fewest 
are able to discover in even the most helpful books. Of 
course he was one of the great exceptions in this, as in many 
other respects, but he is a convincing proof of the possibili- 
ties of the well-poised mind and the honest heart to which a 
school and a book education have been denied. 

Broad Sympathy and Tender Kindness. 
Early in life he displayed evidences of coming powers 
as a public speaker, and it is said that some of his employers 
complained that he would attract "the hands" away from 
their work to listen to him, as, standing on a barrel-head, 
he would deliver an address on some current question. At 
the age of nineteen he was employed on a river boat plying 
on the Mississippi river down to New Orleans. Two years 
later he was similarly employed, and chancing to observe a 
sale of colored people on the auction block his soul revolted 
at the sight. It was then he remarked to a companion : "If 
ever I get a chance to hit slavery, by the Eternal I'll hit it 
hard !" We expect to hear such a sentiment expressed by 
a man like Lincoln, for, whatever else he was, he was a 
man of the tenderest sympathies. Traveling on one occasion 
with some lawyers, his absence was suddenly noted. 
"Where is Lincoln?" asked one of the lawvers. "The last 



190 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROPHETS 

I saw of him," said another, "he had two Httle birds in hi^ 
hand and was hunting for their nest in a bunch of crab-, 
apple trees." An hour later Lincoln overtook his com- 
panions and the}- laughed at him. "You may laugh, gentle- 
men, but I could not have slept well to-night if I had not 
saved those birds ; their cries would have rung in my ears." 
On another occasion, while riding with some friends, 
he turned and rode back, got down from his horse and 
soiled his best suit of clothes while releasing a pig which 
had in some way become pinned luider a rail fence. When 
his friends rebuked him for his appearance he remarked : 
"I did not want to do it myself, and so I drove by, but the 
look in that pig's eye seemed to say, 'There goes my last 
chance.' It haunted me." At another time, seeing a beetle 
on its back struggling to regain its normal attitude, he 
gently turned it over "to give it another chance." Mercy 
and justice reigned in his heart, righteousness dominated 
his soul, fair play was the rulmg passion of his nature. 

The Game of Politics. 

In 1830 the family removed to Illinois, and Lincoln 
soon earned popular respect because of his physical bravery 
and sympathetic courage as displayed during the Black 
Hawk War, during which he served as a captain of volun- 
teers. He now became interested in politics, and I have 
no doubt but he became master of all the details of that 
"popular game." If he resorted to means and methods 
which savored of the politician rather than of the statesman 
it was because Lincoln, in spite of his greatness, was only 
a man. We must remember this in justice to his memory. 
He was not a perfect man ; such a one has never lived. He 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN I9I 

had human faihngs, as everyone has, except the critics (?), 
The tendency to smooth the wrinkles out of his character 
has already begun to manifest itself ; but those who love 
the rugged character of the human Lincoln want every 
wrinkle left untouched. Cromwell bade the artist "Paint 
me as I am !" and those who admire and love the martyr- 
President could wish that the idealizing process would 
cease forthwith. Lincoln was essentially one of the "plain 
people." 

He had all the failings of ordinary humanity, all the 
rustic inelegancies of the backwoodsman. High-minded and 
honest, he nevertheless knew the tricks of the politician's 
trade, and, from what I have read, I am led to believe that 
he did sometimes resort to them. He was a manly ii'.an, 
not an emascultcd deity. He was a human being, not a 
god. Washington no longer belongs to the realms of 
humanity, for his biographers have made of him a marble 
statue. Some orator said that the "father of his country" 
had been made "a steel engraving." Let us hope rhat Lin« 
coin will escape such a fate and that none will err in repre- 
senting Lincoln as anything but one of the common people, 
a genius, a savior, a martyr, 'tis true, but an ordinary hunian 
being, nevertheless. 

Defeat and Failure, 
His political career began with defeat and he tried his 
hand at business in which he failed. He was appointed 
postmaster of New Salem and became a surveyor. Business 
was not very brisk ; the mail he carried in his hat, and his 
stock in trade, horse, saddle and instruments, were sold for 
debt. Nothing could daunt his spirit. He studied law and 



1 9(2 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROPHETS 

mastered "grammar." A little practice began to come, and 
owing to his reputation as "honest Abe" his fame began to 
spread. Three times he was re-elected to the State Legis- 
lature, in 1836, 1838, 1840. His experiences at the State 
Capitol were similar to those of the average assemblyman. 
He entered with zest into all the usual party politics and 
took an active part in helping to remove the capital of Illi- 
nois from Vandalia to Springfield. One incident, like the 
proverbial straw, showed which way the wind blew. To- 
gether with one other member of the Legislature he pro- 
tested against a pro-slavery resolution and declared "the 
institution of slavery to be founded on both injustice and 
bad policy" (March, 1837). 

Law and Not Mob Rule. 

From the beginning of his public life Lincoln. had faith 
in the sound common-sense and honest motives of the peo- 
ple, so long as they were uninfluenced by "hired liars." 
He felt that the American people could show that this 
country was not a mere experiment in governments, but 
that deep down in their hearts was a profound regard for 
the constituted authorities and a cordial love for American 
institutions. He realized that slavery was wrong and he 
never swerved from this conviction. He knew that many 
desired slavery to continue, but that none could ethically 
justify the institution. He observed how this evil was 
vitiating the moral judgment of many, and in one of his 
early public speeches before the Y. M. C. A. of Springfield, 
111., in January, 1837, he wisely cautioned his hearers, "Let 
every man remember that to violate the law is to trample 
on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 193 

own and his children's Hberty. Let reverence for the laws 
be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe 
that prattles on her lap. Let it be taught in schools, in 
seminaries and in colleges. Let it be written in primers, 
spelling books and in almanacs. Let it be preached from 
the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls and enforced in 
courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political 
religion of the nation." 

Slavery and Moral Issue. 
A man who spoke thus could not long remain without 
powerful influence. The time was rapidly coming w^hen the 
public conscience needed awakening to the enormity of the 
evils worked by slavery. Men needed someone of strong 
convictions to stir their sluggish moral concepts, and Lin- 
coln was one of those to accomplish this end. In his every 
fiber he felt the wickedness of the institution of slavery. 
With him the matter involved a question of morals, and 
since he felt it was a wicked violation of fundamental rights 
he refused to believe that the writers of our Constitution 
desired to make slavery perpetual in the United States. In 
1848 he had become sufficiently prominent to be elected to 
Congress, but his ambition found no satisfaction therefrom. 
At the end of his term he felt that he was not designed 
to be the people's representative and sought to be a Com-i 
missioner of the Land Office Department. In this he failed, 
but he was offered the territorial governorship of Oregon, 
which he did not accept. The year 1850 found him, there- 
fore, of uncertain hopes concerning a political future, but 
enjoying a successful law practice in partnership with a 
most reputable attorney. 



194; NINETEENTH CENTURY PROPHETS 

His Marriage. 
But in the meantime he had married, his love affairs 
proving, however, sad in the extreme. The girl he loved 
died, and this same man, who could patiently serve a nation 
in arms in later years, was often seen lying over the grave 
in which lay buried Miss Ann Rutledge, weeping and sob- 
bing as if his heart would break. In course of time he be- 
came reconciled and proposed marriage to another young 
woman, who rejected him. His third experience was with 
Miss Mary Todd, who became his wife. It is needless to 
refer to the strange and sad occurrences which took place 
before the marriage and, according to some, after it. To 
repeat them here and now is neither seemly nor sympa- 
thetic. Suffice it to say that in this matter, as in all others, 
Lincoln was guided by his conscience, and though he did 
not see his duty as other men might, he was, nevertheless, in 
all things a man of honor and integrity. 

Mastered the History of Slavery. 
The rest of Lincoln's life revealed to him, as to the 
world, that his previous failures and sorrows had been the 
moral instructors, the mentors, necessary to fit him to . 
occupy the most prominent position during one of the niost 
important periods of human history. He did not know, 
neither did the nation, what was lying in wait, and it was 
only in 1854 that the American people awoke to the mean- 
ing of the Missouri Compromise and the Kansas-Nebraska 
Rill. These measures were like a prepared train, which, 
if, ignited, would explode a vast volume of, so to speak, 
moral dynamite, and Lincoln was the man who. foremost 
among the abolitionists, laid the match to that train. He 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN I95 

had studied the slavery question. He was a master of every 
detail of its history and of the legislation concerning it. 
It was the one only question "on which he would become 
excited." It set his whole being aflame in opposition to the 
gigantic wrong. It was not with him a question of sec- 
tarian bias. There was no religious creed involved in this 
matter as far as he was concerned, although the churches. 
North and South, split over it. To him it was purely and 
simply, a matter of right and wrong, — not Christian right 
or wrong, nor Mahommedan right or wrong, nor Jewish 
right or wrong, but purely an ethical question. 

More Than Sectarian Question. 
It is necessary to digress for a moment at this point ta 
emphasize this thought. Lincoln's religion could not be 
bound within the fences of church creeds. The essential 
difference between right and wrong was not, according to 
Lincoln, a matter disclosed by sectarian dogmas. He did 
not believe as the bulk of his fellow countrymen did in this 
respect. He understood the devious ways of creed and 
dogma too well to bind his intelligent and spiritual mind 
by any such specimens of logic, based on suppositious 
premises, as creeds and articles of belief and confessions 
of faith. His religion was too broad for the churches of 
his day and his heart found nourishment in better soul-food 
than they supplied. I desire you to follow me one step 
further on this question, in order that you may fully realize 
the meaning of the damning creeds pitilessly rehearsed by 
millions of people who, I verily believe, are much better 
than their creeds. If these creeds are true, then this Abra- 
ham Lincoln, w'hom this nation proclaims to have been the 



196 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROPHETS 

embodiment of the spirit of a great people, is at this mo- 
ment writhing in everlasting hell, gnashing his teeth and 
wailing, as his body is being boiled in hot pitch or burned 
and re-burned in eternal fire. For Lincoln was not a 
Christian, since he did not believe in Jesus as the only be- 
gotten son of God, nor in his power to save men from the 
consequences of their own sins. He was not a member of 
the Church and he did not accept the dogmas of Chris- 
tianity, and, therefore, by the logic of the situation the 
churches are forced to consign Lincoln to eternal hell. 

A Poor Sectarian. 

That our great President was not an orthodox believer 
will be disputed by none who have read the reliable biog- 
raphies that have appeared. According to Hemdon, his 
law partner, (cf "Abraham Lincoln," by William H. Hern- 
don and Jesse W. Weik, Vol. 11., pp. 145-156), he was a 
rationalist, and among the many witnesses he adduces in 
his endeavor to disclose Lincoln's position on matters of 
religion is Mrs. Lincoln, who says, "Mr. Lincoln had nc 
faith and no hope in the usual acceptation of those words. 
He never joined a church, but still, as I believe, he was a 
religious man by nature. He seemed to think much about 
this, particularly when our Willie died, and more than ever 
about the time he went to Gettysburg, but it was a kind of 
poetry in his nature. He was never a technical Christian." 

Lincoln's Religion Not Christian. 
If further testimony were needed it might be obtained 
from Mr. Frank B. Carpenter's "Six Months at the White 
House," in which he quotes the Hon. H. C. Deming of 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 197 

Connecticut as remarking, "On one occasion I shall never 
forget, the conversation turned upon religious subjects, and 
Mr. Lincoln made this impressive remark : 'I have never 
united myself to any church because I have found difficult} 
in giving my assent, without mental reservation, to the long, 
complicated statements of Christian doctrine which char- 
acterize their Articles of Belief and Confessions of Faith. 
When any church will inscribe over its altar, as its sole 
qualification for membership, the Savior's condensed state- 
ment of the substance of both law and Gospel, " 'Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with 
all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as 
thyself,' " that church will I join with all my heart and all 
my soul." In these words there is no scrap of consolation 
for those who refer to the fact that since Lincoln speaks 
of "the Savior's condensed statement," he accepted Jesus 
as the world's savior. Such a deduction would be as illogical 
as to say that Ingersoll's occasional reference to God proves 
that he was not an agnostic. 

If I have dwelt on this matter at this point, my purpose 
has been twofold. In the first place I wish you to thor- 
oughly realize the injustice of some of these sectarian 
creeds ; and in the second place, I want to emphasize the 
fact that Lincoln, like the other prophets of whom I have 
spoken in this course of lectures, stood far above creeds 
and dogmas, while being, in every particular, a most in- 
tensely religious man. To him, as to us, religion had more 
to do with character than with belief, with deed than with 
creed, with righteousness than with confessions of faith. 
I am not blaming any man or party by these remarks. I 



198 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROPHETS 

only blame certain creeds which, I think, are wrong, and 
which must either be revised or expunged if religion is not 
to be harmed. For when men are forced to choose between 
a religion whose creeds can consign a Lincoln to the eter- 
nal fires of hell and no religion at all, their choice will, as a 
rule, be easily made. 

Lincoln and Douglas. 
But to resume. The State of Illinois became, in a 
political sense, the forum of the slavery question. It be- 
came apparent to Lincoln, as to all the abolitionists, that 
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise would make the 
institution of slavery a perpetual, instead of a temporary, 
expedient. He arose in arms against this attempt to foist 
this unspeakable evil on the nation. The Whig party dis- 
appeared in the fusion of anti-slavery interests and the Re- 
publican party was born. Nominated foi* the United States 
Senate as a Whig, he failed to receive sufficient votes for 
election. The first Republican National Convention nomi- 
nated him for Vice-President and he received a not incon- 
siderable support, but failed to be chosen. Another man 
would have retired after so many failures. But Lincoln 
had now discovered that he had a mission to fulfil. The 
serpent of slavery threatened to enter into the paradise of 
America as a perpetual guest, and he felt that it must not 
be scotched ; it had to be destroyed. The opportunity was 
at hand. The celebrated Stephen A. Douglas was one of 
the United States Senators from Illinois. He had espoused 
the Democratic side of the slavery issue, and it was felt 
that when, during the Senate recesses, he sought to ex- 
plain his position to the Illinois electors, someone ought to 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1 99 

be prepared to answer him. Lincoln seemed to be the logi- 
cal person. 

The Peoria Address. 

Accordingly in October, 1854. in an address at Peoria, 
he took an opportunity of opposing Douglas. In course of 
that address he said, "I particularly object to the new posi- 
tion which the avowed principle of this Nebraska law 
gives to slavery in the body politic. I object to it because 
it assumes that there can be moral right in the enslaving 
of one man by another. * >;= * j object to it because 
the Fathers of the Republic eschewed and rejected it. 
* * * The plain, unmistakable spirit of their age to- 
w^ards slavery was hostility to the principle, and toleration 
only by necessity. But now it is to be transformed into 
a sacred right. * * * Henceforth it is to be the chief 
jewel of the nation, — the very figure-head of the ship of 
State. Little by little, but steadily as man's march to the 
grave, we have been giving up the old for the new faith. 
Near eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men 
are created equal ; but now from that beginning we have 
run down to the other declaration, that for some men to 
enslave others is a sacred right of self-government. These 
principles cannot stand together. They are as opposite as 
God and Mammon ; and whoever holds to the one must 
despise the other." 

Keen Logic and Biting Satire. 

Lincoln's uncompromising attitude on this question 
and his keen reasoning won for him the respect and honor 
of his fellow-citizens throughout Illinois. With wit and 
satire and a penetrating and pitiless logic as his instru- 



200 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROPHETS 

ments, with a firm conviction in the righteousness of his 
cause, he entered the arena assured that he must finally win. 
He traced the progress made by the pro-slavery advocacy 
in a few words, in a manner that was charmingly simple 
and supremely convincing. Said he, "As a nation, we be- 
gan by declaring that all men are created equal. We now 
practically read it, all men are created equal except negroes. 
When the Know-nothings get control, it will read, all men 
are created equal except negroes and foreigners and Cath- 
olics. When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to 
some country where they make no pretence of loving lib- 
erty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken 
pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy." A man 
who reasoned thus, and who strengthened his reasoning by 
his mode of life, could not but impress his personality on 
the community. 

Accordingly in 1858 the Illinois Republican party nomi- 
nated him for United States Senator to oppose Stophen A. 
Douglas, whose term was just about to end. On that oc- 
casion Lincoln uttered these words which have since been 
regarded as a matchless piece of logic, as well as an utter- 
ance worthy of perpetual remembrance by nations. States, 
communities and homes. Said he, "A house divided 
against itself cannot stand. I believe that this government 
cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. I 
do not expect the Union to be dissolved, — I do not expect 
the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be di- 
vided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either 
the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, 
and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 20I 

that it is in the course of ultimate extinction ; or its ad- 
vocates will push it forward till it shall become alike law- 
ful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as 
South." 

Douglas Debates Made Lincoln Known. 

Up till this time Lincoln was a man, who, from a 
national standpoint, was comparatively unknown. When, 
after his nomination for the Senate, it was agreed that he 
and Douglas should hold a series of debates on the ques- 
tions of the day, Lincoln at once became a national char- 
acter and held a prominent position in the eyes of the coun- 
try. Douglas, who was known as "the little giant," im- 
agined he would have a simple task to overcome Lincoln ; 
as boys would say, now-a-days, he thought "he would 
have an easy time with the country jay." Lincoln knew 
that he faced both the opportunity and the battle of his life. 
For Douglas was a scholar, a polished speaker, a clever de- 
bater and used to the public platform ; while Lincoln's defi- 
ciencies in this respect were known to none better than to 
Lincoln himself. Debate after debate followed and it be- 
came apparent to him that the position of Senator was of 
secondary importance. It dawned on Lincoln at last that 
the outcome of these debates might be an election, not to 
the Senate, but to the White House. 

The Important Query. 

He accordingly proceeded to set before Douglas a 
series of questions the answers to which might give his op- 
ponent an immediate gain, but would bring to himself the 
greater, though more distant, advantage. Accordingly, at 



^02 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROPHETS 

Jonesboro, he demanded a reply to his queries, one of them 
being, "Can the people of a United States Territory in any 
lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United 
States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the forma- 
tion of a State constitution?" His friends begged him not 
to ask this question. They all foretold his defeat and point- 
ed out the immense popular advantage Douglas would gain 
from his reply. But Lincoln knew that if his opponent 
answered in the affirmative or the negative he would lose 
either the North or the South, and he likewise felt that if 
Douglas captured the Senate, he himself might capture the 
Presidency. The course of events sustained his remark- 
able foresight. 

Nominated for President. 

It followed naturally, as Lincoln thought, that when 
a candidate for the Presidency was required he would be 
the man. The Republican party wisely selected him as its 
nominee. His speech at Cooper Union, New York, set the 
country at ease as to his position. Then he showed the 
character of the man he was, and he stood out in bold 
relief over his former adversary, Douglas. For the latter 
had held, as Lincoln had quoted in his last debate with the 
Senator, that "he did not care whether slavery is voted up 
or down." Lincoln's position was unswerving in his sense 
of right, immovably fixed on the eternal granite of moral 
principle, "Neither let us," said he to the New York 
audience, "be slandered from our duty by false accusations 
against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruc- 
tion to the government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let 
us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 203 

US to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it." 
The general election was favorable to Lincoln and the 
struggle of years, with its defeats and disappointments 
ended by his being called to the most honorable position in 
the gift of a free people. He, finally, left Springfield for 
Washington and, on the way East, he stopped long enough 
to speak here in Pittsburg. 

He then proceeded to Trenton, Philadelphia, Harris- 
burg and lastly to Washington. In the East he learned of 
a conspiracy formed in Baltimore to assassinate him and 
with this in mind, as well as the grave public situation, he 
said on the steps of Independence Hall, "It was not the 
mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the 
motherland, but that sentiment in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this 
country, but hope to all the world for all future time. It 
was that which gave promise that in due time the weight 
would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all 
should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment em- 
bodied in the Declaration of Independence, Now, my 
friends, can this country be saved on that basis? If it can, 
I will consider myself one of the happiest men in the world 
if I can help to save it. But if it cannot be saved from 
that principle, it will be trul\- awful. But if this country 
cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about 
to say that I would rather be assassinated on this spot than 
surrender it." 



204 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROPHETS 

First Inaugural. 

He reached Washington safely and on March 4th, 1861, 
delivered his famous First Inaugural Address. That speech 
is a part of history. It was the pathetic pleading of a 
father with his family not to quarrel. He yearned to have 
peace. He wanted the house to remain undivided. He 
wanted the various States to form an unbroken Union. He 
wanted the Union to be the expression of the will of a free 
and unseparated people. Never, as long as lips can issue 
words, never so long as human souls can flame forth in 
commendation of right will these words be forgotten, "In 
your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in 
mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government 
will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being 
yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered 
in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have 
the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect and defend it.' I 
am loathe to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We 
must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it 
must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords 
of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot 
grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this 
broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when 
again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels 
of our nature." 

His Difficult Undertaking. 

Lincoln realized that the temper of the South was such 
that the issue between it and the rest of the country would 
be settled only on the bloody field of battle. Yet he sought 
every means of avoiding war, and he determined that the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 205 

South should be the aggressor. The firing on Fort Sumter 
brought the matter to a chmax, war ensued, the awful 
memory abiding with you to this day. For the chief figure 
of that awful period one cannot but feel pity as well as 
reverence. No man ever had a more difficult task to per- 
form than he. Disaffection existetl on all sides; in the 
country, in the party, in the cabinet, lie had been Presi- 
dent but one month when Seward complained, "You have 
already been m power one month and you have no policy, 
domestic or foreign." He even went so far as to lecture 
the President and to write him what should be his course 
of action abroad and at home. Had Lincoln been any other 
man he would have ruined Seward by publishing that let- 
ter ; as it was, the writer soon learned of his mistake, and 
did penance by aft'ording manly support to his chief. Chase, 
too, was aggrieved because a man of Lincoln's type shuuld 
have been chosen over himself. Ihen, too, men of the 
tions, but Lincoln never swerved, never lost his temper, 
but always remained fixed in his determination "to save the 
Greeley type worried the President with advice and sugges- 
Union." 

The Greeley Letter. 
His letter to Greeley in August, 1862, shows his char- 
acter remarkably and is well worth remembering. It runs 
thus, in part, "As to the policy 1 'seem to be pursuing," as 
you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I 
would save the Union. I would save it in the shortest way 
under the constitution. The sooner the national authority 
can be restored, the nearer the L'nion will be, — the L^nion 
as it was. If there be those who would not save the Union 



2o6 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROPHETS 

unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not 
agree with them. If there be those who would not save 
the Union unless they could at the same time destroy 
slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object 
in this struggle is to save the Union, and not either to save 
or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without free- 
ing any slave, I would do it ; if I could save it by freeing 
all the slaves, I would do it ; and if I could save it by free- 
ing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. 
What I do about slavery and the colored race, T do because 
1 believe it helps to save the Union ; and what I forbear, I 
forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the 
Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe that what 
I am doing hurts the cause; and I shall do more whenever 
I shall believe doing more will help the cause. T shall try 
to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall 
adopt new views as fast as they shall appear to be true 
views. I have here stated my purpose according to my 
view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my 
oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could 
be free." 

Prophet, Statesman, Martyr. 
After the war had begun Lincoln became impressed 
with the wisdom of emancipating the negroes, as a political 
necessity. The defeats of the Northern army delaved the 
issuance of the dociniient he had presented to the Cabinet 
in July, 1862. However, on September 22nd, 1862. the 
Emancipation Proclamation was issued, and on January ist, 
1863, the negroes were freed and hundreds of thousands of 
men capable of bearing arms were added to the Northern 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 207 

cause. \ ictorv finally canu- to the anti-slavery party. Abo- 
lition triumphed, and peace was restored. Lincoln was re- 
elected President, but not for long did he enjoy his well- 
earned fame. The assassin's bullet laid him low; the states- 
man who had shown himself to be a prophet became a 
martyr for the cause ho had served. 

The Nation's Fadeless Memory. 

They did not know, those enemies of Lincoln's, that 
he had been their great friend. Thev did not understand, 
those yellow journals of the sixties, that Lincoln was the 
great spirity of liberty embodied in a man. They did not 
know that this Abraham Lincoln was the noblest American 
of them all. It was the frenzied madness of a lunatic that 
laid him low. Darkness came at the bright noonday. Those 
who had been foes gathered aroimd his bier and pronounced 
eulogies of the great prophet who. as a statesman, had seen 
that the house could not remain divided and that this Ihiion 
could not continue half slave and half free. He broke 
shackles ; he destroyed fetters ; he brought light where it 
had been dark. LJpon the rugged face of this world-prophet 
destiny carved, with patient hand, the symbol of greatness. 
Tie loved to bring the snu'lc where before there had been 
tears. 

America's Suffering IMessiah. 

He was America's suffering Messiah. Despised and 
rejected of men originally, he became the Projihet of the 
Union. Upon him was laid the burden of the people. He 
was oppressed for the nation ; he was destroyed, th'^ victim 
of the nation's passion. He began as a raw backwoodsman : 



208 NINETEENTH CENTURY PROPHETS 

he ended a Prophet. He began an awkward stump-speaker ; 
he ended as one of the world's orators. He began un- 
known ; he ended standing on the pedestal of greatness, as 
undying as the name America itself. He began restricted in 
opportunity he ended with hands outstretched to bless the 
nation, the one hand breaking shackles, the other hand up- 
lifting the fallen. 

"His life was gentle, and the elements 

So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up 

And say to all the world — This was a man." 



NINETEENTH CKXTURY PROPHETS . 209 

In tlu' prcparatimi of tla- foregoing biograpliical skelclics the 
writer has consuhed. among otliers, the following works: 

Xnrtoit, I'rof. C. li Correspondence with R. W. ICmcrson 

.Untold, A. S The Story of Thomas Carlyle 

Coirway. M. D Letters and Recollections of Carlyle 

Froitdc, J . .1 1 listory of P^irst Forty Years of Carlyle's Life 

frondc. J . A History of Carlyle's Life in London 

Canictt, Dr. R Life of Thomas Carlvle 

Nicholl, H. J Carlyle 

Alcott, A. B., R. W. Emerson. Philosopher and Seer 

Cabot, J. E Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Conway, M. D Emerson at Home and Abroad 

Cooke, G. ]¥., Lite, Writings and Philosophy of Emerson 

Holmes, Dr. O. W R. W. Emerson 

Sanborn, F. B Homes and Haunts of Emerson 

Sanborn, F. B Genius and Character of Emerson 

Jennings. H.J Alfred Tennyson 

/ 'an Dyke, H The Poetry of Tennyson 

Tennyson. Lord Memoir 

Wise, Leo, (Ed ) ■ American Israelite 

Wise, L M., Reminiscences 

Chadzvick, J. W Theodore Parker 

Mead, F.. D The Jntiuence of Emerson 

Ruskin, J Praeterita 

Geddes. Prof. I' John Ruskin, Economist 

Mather, J . M Life and Teaching of John Ruskin 

Harrison, F., John Ruskin 

Tolstoy, L. X Childhood, Boyhood, Youth 

Tolstoy, L. X My Life 

Tolstoy, L. X My Confession 

Turner, C. E Count Tolstoy as XoveHst and Thinker 

Steincr, E. A. Tolstoy the Man 

Herndon, li'eik Abraham Lincoln 

Sclvtrz, C, Abraham Lincoln 

higersoll, R. G., Abraham Lincoln 

Chittenden. L. E., Abraham Lincoln's Speeches 

Rice, A. T., (Ed. ), Reminiscences of Lincoln 

Brooks, A' Abraham Lincoln 

Holland, J. G The Life of Abraham Lincoln 

Lanion. H'. H Life of Abraham Lincoln 



SUNDAY LECTURES 

BEFORE 

Congregation Rodeph Shalom 



SERIES I. 



1. For What Do We Stand ? 

2. The Consequences of Belief. 

3. The Modern Millionaire. 

4. The Wandering Jew. 

5. A Father's Power. 

6. A Mother's Influence. 

7. The Child's Realm. 

8. The Chosen of the Earth. 

9. Atheism and Anarchism. 

10. A Jewish View of Jesus. 

11. The Doom of Dogma. 

12. The Dawn of Truth. 
1.3. Friendships. 



14. 
15. 
16. 
17. 
18. 
19. 
20. 
21. 
22. 
23. 
24. 
25. 
26. 



Zionism. 

Gone, but Not i<orgotten. '' 

Pleasures and Pastimes. 

Marriage. 

Intermarriage. 

What is the Good of Religion? 

Love and Duty. 

The Miracle of the Ages. 

A Jewish View of Easter. 

The Spirit of Modern Judaism. 

The Ideal Home. 

The Prophets of Israel. 

Marching on. 







SERIES 


II. 


1. 


Emile Zola;— A Tribute. 




15. 


Our Neighbors' Faith. 


2. 


The Highest Gifts. 




16. 


The Messiah. 


3. 


Art and the Synagogue. 




17. 


The Future of Religion. 


4. 


Prejudice. 




18. 


The Liberators. 


5. 


Youth and its Visions. 




19. 


Man and Nature. 


6. 


Age and Its Realities. 




20. 


What Woman May Do. 


7. 


Is Life Worth Living ? 




21. 


The School of Life. 


8. 


Is Marriage a Failure ? 




22. 


Sowing the Wind — Reaping the 


9. 


The True and Only Son of God. 




Whirlwind. 


10. 


The Conquering Hero. 




23. 


The World's Debt to Israel. 


11. 


The Truth in Judaism. 




24. 


The Man without a Religion. 


12. 


The One Only God. 




25. 


The Prize and the Price. 


13. 


The Holy Bible. 




26. 


Samson. 


14. 


The Vast Forever. 









SERIES III. 



1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
7. 
8. 
9. 

10. 
11. 
12. 



What do we gain by Reform? 
"Making Haste to be Rich." 
Mob3. 
"What all the world's a seeking" 

I. May we Criticise the Bible? 

II. Results of Bible Criticism. 
Religion and the Theater. 
The Continuous Warfare. 
Reform Judaism and Primitive 

Christianity. 
A Child's Blessing. 
Herbert Spencer; — A Tribute. 
Is God Divided? 



13. 
14. 
15. 
16. 
17. 
18. 

19. 
20. 
21. 
22. 
23. 
24. 



Cruel, to be Kind. 

Hypocrisy. 

War or Peace? 

The Strenuous Life. 

The Parent and the Child. 

Ihe "Politician or the People,- 

Which? 
The Use of Life. 
The Jew. 
Social Purity. 
The Noblest Work of God. 
Crimes of the Tongue. 
Self-Respect. 



Sunday Lectures by Rabbi J. Leonard Levy. 



Series A, J893— 1894. 

Abreast of the Times. 

What has the Jew done for the World? 

The Believing Sceptic. 

Reliance on Science. 

The Unity of all Religions. 

What is the Messiah? 

The Rule of Right. 

Forever and Forever. 

Are Women Superstitious? 

Are Reform Jews becoming Christians? 

The Survival of the Republic. 

Reformers, Deformers and Defamers. 

An Easter Vision. 

After the Winter, Spring. 

True Till Death. 

Series B, J894— 1895. 

1. Masters of the Situation. 

2. The Greatest Living Wonder. 

J. Criminal Curiosity and Cowardly Con- 
sistency. 

4. Has Satan Conquered God? 

The Greater Lights. 

5. I. The Light of the World — Moses and 

the Prophets. 

6. A Night in the Slums. 

7. II. The Light of the Orient— Confucius. 

8. A Parent's Blessing. 

III. The Light of Asia— Buddha. 
Heroes and Heroines. 

IV. The Light of Iran— Zoroaster. 

V. The Light of Christendom— Jesus. 

VI. The Light of Arabia — Mohammed. 
The Holy Catholic Church. 
Sunday Newspapers. 

Series C 1895— 1896. 

The New Jew. 

Put Yourself in his Place. 

Home. 

A. Pilgrim's Journey to Mt. Zion. 

Modern Society. 

Anierica and England. 

Our Girls and Boys. 

Orthodox Saints and Reform Sinners. 

The Church and the State. 

Being Dead, They Yet Speak. 

The Radical's Appeal. 

At the Grave of Jesus. 

Overcoming Obstacles. 

A Common-Sense View of Religion. 

Series D, 1896— 1897. 

1. Some Qaestions of the Day. 

2. The Greatest Work Ever Written. 
8. Success and Failure. 

4. Syria and Palestine. 

5. The Most Remarkable Work Ever 

Written. 

The Jewish Man. 

The Jewish Woman. 

The Jewish Youth 

l3 Judaism Catholic? 

Songs without Words. 

Anti-Semitism, its Cause and Cure. 

" My God, my God, why hast Thou for- 
saken me?" 

See that the Republic receive no harm. 



Series E, 1897— J898. 

1. Dare the Clergy Tell the Truth? 

2. Are Our Cities in Danger ? 

3. " The School for Scandal." 

4. Where did Religion come from? 

5. " Because Mother told me so." 

6. " Weighed in the Balance." 

7. Custom and Conscience. 

8. Are we Jews? 

9. Unrequited Affection. 

10. Which Sabbath ought we Observe > 

11. What good has IngersoUism done? 

12. What advantage has the Jew? 

13. The Altar at the Hearth. 

Series F, 1898— 1899. 

1. The First Doubt. 

2. " What Will People Say?" 

3. The Basis of Matrimony. 

4. The Rivals. 

5. A Child's Blessing. 

6. The Dawn of the New Era. 

7. Nursery Rhymes and Superstitions. 

8. Good Literature. 

9. The Lessons of History. 

10. The Struggle for Liberty. 

11. What Art May Do. 

12. The Lost Paradise. 

13. The Risen Jew, or Paradise Regained* 

14. Nature as a Teacher. 

15. The Drama. 

Series G, J899— J900. 

1. " New Lamps for Old Ones : " or 

The Children of the GhettC 

2. The Jew and the Gentile. 

3. The Truth. 

4. Home Life among the Jews. 

5. Israel's Immortals. 

6. " Onward and Upward." 

7. The Sin Against Love. 

8. A Fool's Paradise. 

9. " Logic taught by Love." 

10. The Jew and the .Synagogue. 

11. Woman. A Purim Sermon, 

12. Man's Inhumanity to Man, 

13. The Moth and the Flame. 

14. The Best is Yet to Come. 

Series H, 1900— I90I. 

1. Fashion and Reality. 

2. " The Reign of Law." 

3. Religion in the Nineteenth Centtjry. 

4. The Bible in the Nineteenth Century, 
. 5. The Jew in the Nineteenth Century. 

6. " Our Kin Across the Sea," 

7. Science in the Nineteenth Century. 

8. Her Majesty, Queen Victoria. 

9. The Greatest Discovery of the 

Nineteenth Century. 

10. The Jew's Revenge. 

11. The Heart's Best Love. 

12. Retrospect and Prospect. 



The abov^ Lectures can be obtained at 5 cts. 
percrpy. Apply to 

CHARLES H. JOSEPH. 
619 Bijou Building, Pittsburg. Pa 



